Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate
Mitt Romney donated $7 million to charity in the past two years,
more than the $6.2 million the candidate and his wife paid in
federal taxes in that period, documents the campaign released
show.

Romney and his wife, Ann, who jointly file taxes, gave $1.5
million cash in 2010 and $2.6 million cash in 2011 to the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the tax documents show. A
former Massachusetts governor whose campaign estimates his
fortune at between $190 million and $250 million as co-founder
of Boston private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC, Romney is a
devout Mormon with deep family ties to the church.

The Romneys donated about 16.4 percent of their adjusted
gross income of $42.5 million in the two-year period, according
to their 2010 tax returns and an estimate for 2011 taxes. The
2010 return shows $3 million in charitable contributions, and
the 2011 estimate shows $4 million.

At first glance, the dollar amount of the Romneys’
charitable giving is “shocking,” Russell James, director of a
graduate program in charitable financial planning at Texas Tech
University in Lubbock, said in a telephone interview today.
“But it’s a different story when you compare it to total
wealth. It’s not a shocking amount when you have a quarter-billion dollars in wealth.”

Gifts of Stock

In addition to their church donations, the Romneys had
deductions for more than $2 million in donations that are listed
as noncash charitable contributions. That includes tens of
thousands of shares of stock in Domino’s Pizza Inc, Senasata
Technologies, Dunkin Donuts and Warner Chilcott that went to his
family’s Tyler Foundation, based in Boston. Romney’s Bain
Capital acquired those companies, records show.

It isn’t unusual for high earners like the Romneys to
funnel money into charitable foundations that they control, said
Lloyd Mayer, an associate dean at the University of Notre Dame
Law School.

“If you’re wealthy, you set up your own private
foundation,” Mayer said. “You get a deduction now, but you
don’t have to give it all away right away. You can do it in a
much more leisurely way.”

‘Common Strategy’

From a tax perspective, it makes sense for the Romneys to
use shares of stock to make charitable donations, Mayer said. If
someone donates shares that have increased in value, they can
deduct the contribution while avoiding the 15 percent capital
gains tax they would have to pay otherwise.

“It’s a very common strategy,” Mayer said.

Still, the large amount of cash donations reflects that
Romney wasn’t engaged in an aggressive strategy to use
charitable contributions to lower his taxes, said Miranda
Fleischer, an associate professor of taxation at the University
of Colorado Law School.

“In 2011, about 75 percent of what he gave was in cash and
that’s not necessarily the most tax-advantageous method,” she
said.

The Tyler Foundation made $647,500 in donations during
2010, including $75,000 to the Center for the Treatment of
Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis and $10,000 to the Dana Farber
Cancer Institute. It also donated $145,000 to the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, $100,000 to the George W.
Bush presidential library and $10,000 to the Harvard Business
School, of which Romney is an alumnus.

The donations to the church could help Romney among some
evangelical voters who have been reluctant to support his
presidential bid, said Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller
Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

‘Reason to Pause’

“His tax returns give us reason to pause and say, ‘Hey,
have we been fair to this guy?’” said Mouw, who isn’t a Mormon
and hasn’t endorsed a Republican presidential candidate.
Evangelicals “should be impressed with the marvelous percentage
that goes to his church and what his church is doing for the
larger human community.”

Americans at Romney’s income level -- upwards of $10
million annually -- donated an average of 6.5 percent of their
adjusted gross income to charity, according to IRS data from
2009, the most recent available. The average in charitable
giving for all tax filers that year was 3.2 percent of adjusted
gross income, the data show.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Romney rival in
the Republican race who made public his 2010 tax returns on Jan.
19, gave about 2.6 percent of his $3.1 million adjusted gross
income to charity in that year. He paid an effective federal tax
rate of 31.7 percent. Romney’s effective federal tax rate in
2010 was 13.9 percent.

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and U.S.
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the other two candidates still
seeking the nomination, haven’t released returns.